K21 and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen have picked Chinese artist Wang Tuo as this year’s winner of the K21 Global Art Award, presented annually to recognise emerging and mid-career artists under the age of 45. The award includes the purchase of Wang Tuo’s multi-channel video installation The Second Interrogation (2022), which will be on view at K21 from 24 May.
Born in Changchun in northeastern China, Wang Tuo’s practice involves film, performance, painting and drawing to examine the collective unconscious and historical traumas in modern Chinese and East Asian history, exploring materials from cultural archives and interrogating the line between fact and fiction. His acquired work The Second Interrogation negotiates the push and pull between artist and authority as well as the role of art under a culture of censorship. His eponymous solo exhibition was presented at Blindspot Gallery in Hong Kong last year.
The K21 Global Art Award 2024 was judged by a jury of five international museum directors and curators including Doryun Chong (Deputy Director and Chief Curator of M+ in Hong Kong), Koyo Kouoh (Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Capetown), Omar Kholeif (Sharjah Art Foundation, Government of Sharjah, UAE), Oluremi C. Onabanjo, (The Museum of Modern Art, New York), and Jochen Volz (Pinacoteca de São Paulo). Wang Tuo was nominated by Doryun Chong.
